Fans of anime distressed by the pathetically poor disc sales of some much loved titles share their choice of the most disappointing sales performances, some of which are surprising – whether due to their apparent popularity or the expectation that they would ever sell at all…

The rankings, with the number of sales in brackets (unknown sales numbers are usually the result of sales so embarrassingly bad that publishers obligingly refrain from making them public below a certain threshold):

Hm?
All I see is proof that Japanese people can always just record it. For all we know, many of their TVs have built-in HDD recorder that can then burn into Bluray/DVD. Just set record timer, and saved that much money.

But of course they'll just blame foreigners that watch whatever those people recorded.

Sorry but, there is just not gonna be a plentiful market for anime that never got aired or anything. Not many would drop that amount of cash for some unknown show barely anyone has ever heard of. Just to once again show that piracy is making the out-of-Japan anime market.

Well, there's no inclusion of the argument for online streaming sales and things like that. I asked the Funimation reps at conventions about how they survive, and they said 'DVD sales are terrible everywhere, anime's no exception, even though strangely the sales for anime dipped less than for movies proportionately. What is keeping the business running are companies who stream now and keep up with Japan, as well as Netflix.'

Basically it's just what we all knew was happening but hate to admit: the physical media is steadily dying even though we want it. But apparently we only want it for nostalgia.

Arakawa Under The Bridge x Bridge, Chihayafuru, Kaichou wa Maid-sama, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Mirai Nikki, The World God Only Knows, and Astarotte no Omocha(to some extend) should have sold higher. What the fu%$ is wrong with Japanese Otaku...

I think almost all the shows in the list should have sold 10 times higher. But the price of getting even one DVD filled with only 2 or 3 episodes is absurd. Even if you are a fan of the show, buying it is just not really an option if you don't have money to throw around (or live off of parents' allowance)

It has less to do with "tits" and more do to with the "price" and"extras." The Animation industry in Japan had low expectations for "YuruYuri" and it outperformed all of these show 3-1. And none of those in the cast have large busts. Its a moe-gag show with middle-school lesbians all over the place.

I suspect the reason why Yuruyuri sold more was because of its low price(yes 5000-6000 yen is "low" in Japan) and the extras it came with it(interview with Seiyus,hand-drawn illustrations, etc).

The committee behind the YuruYuri animation were smart. They knew that by being attentive to their fans, it was going to sell. Its was a big risk but it turned out well for them.

Yep, the high prices are what's killing their sales. Maybe the most popular anime can make a decent profit selling at those price levels, but most people aren't going to consider purchasing anime when it costs a week's wages for a season, especially anime they are only moderately interested in.

Maybe they have experimented with lowering the prices before, but I think this is something where the prices need to stay significantly lower over time to get more people in the habit of collecting the shows they watch. Otherwise, you just have otaku buying anime on a regular basis, and they only have so much money to go around.

Perhaps digital sales could take hold in the near future, with a much lower price point coming with the new medium. Without having to invest in manufacturing discs, they could offer anime for something more like 500 yen an episode or less, and keep them available at the virtual storefront for years to come. Maybe they could offer a lower-resolution streaming rental for something like 100 yen per episode, and allow viewers to upgrade to a permanent HD copy for a few hundred yen more. It might take a few years to fully catch on, but this kind impulse-priced model could greatly expand the market in the long-term.

I mean in most of these, they have really nothing added from the time when they rolled out from TV. If there is no uncensoring to be done they should just add lot of extras into them... Like those short DVD specials(Yuru Yuri), commentaries like they did in Ore no Imouto or something like that.

Unfortunately, The Vile Smile and the upvoters clearly have no idea about the anime industry's business model.

It's quite simple - the DVD/BD sales are the main money-making vehicle for the production. The market for them is beyond tiny (a fraction of one percent of the population), so cutting the retail price won't increase sales all that much. Cutting them by 40% would turn just about every anime into a loss-maker.

In the first place the prices are only so high because otaku were buying them, when no one expected them to.

Startet with VHS and stuff, that were sold to, what were they called again.. this place were you go to, to rent VHS for a weekend..

Anyway, turned out not only those places that made a living of renting out VHS bought these anime, but otaku also. And they continue to.

Damn, if they didn't start to buy at these prices we probably wouldn't even have an anime market as we know it. Because, funny thing is, they started buying around 1982 and guess when anime as we know it started out?

@16:43 Well then the anime industry needs to change their business model. I don't know exactly what that would entail----probably a shift toward lots of sponsors---but there are other entertainment industries in Japan that aren't so DVD/BD-reliant, so it's not impossible.

When them creators pushed the big huge Fucking Red RESET button on plot with that second seasons' first episode, I knew it was all down hill from there. The whole show ends on a pathetic messy wet fart to boot to give it "character".. such a beautifully animated waste of time

If it'd work that way, all you type-A's would have nothing to rage about, since super-sophisticated uber-complex story-driven anime would be all that's being made today instead of the myriads of ecchi harems and slice-of-live "moe"...

PROTIP: They make moe shit so they can sell all the fap pillows and other peripheral merchandise.

Just take a look at any online retailer to see the ACRES of worthless shit they'll try to sell for every show now. From keychains to pillows to towels to drink coasters to coffee cups to placemats to chopsticks to iPhone cases to t-shirts to 20 different figures to artbooks to alarm clocks to pencil sets to calendars to thermos bottles to notepads to etc etc etc.

And you know this shit is pure profit. A coffee cup will cost 30 yen to churn out of a factory in China and they'll sell it for 1000.